LandofMinos, Thinks emu is tastier than kangaroo

Hello_Newman

it's not always the bicycler's fault. I was riding my bike on the sidewalk when i was a kid and a woman pulled out of an alley from behind a hedgerow with her damn engine shut off and clocked me good. a week in the hospital.

it's also not always the fault of the auto driver. plenty of bike mishaps have been caused by arrogant-ass cyclers attemtping to be lazy or fast.

the bike-to-car collision problem isn't technical, so a technical solution like an airbag isn't likely to work. it is a behavioral problem on both sides, so a behavioral fix (training and education) is probably going to be the best remedy.

Naikrovek

Adding airbags to the hood of every car is just sneering in the face of evolution. It's about survival of the fittest, so if you're stupid enough to put yourself in the path of a hurtling automobile, you should suffer the consequence. Cull the herd!

Just today, I rode up (on my motorcycle) on some dumbshit cyclist that was riding in the MIDDLE of two lanes of a 55MPH road. He was going to lane split himself to the stop sign and attempt to turn left in between traffic, and cut off my lane splitting and potentially creating a dangerous situation for both of us. I sped up to get in front of him so as to not get stuck behind him and getting trapped between a couple of SUV's making a left while this dilrod tried to pedal down the middle of the road. This is a road that has concrete curbing between the road lanes and the bike lanes no less! This is the kind of crap that gets cyclists killed.

slackinfux

Rocketteer

FTFY :-)

/dons flamesuit, sits down to watch the conflagration that he has likely started

turbodan

MOPAR-MAN

My City recently painted in bike lanes on some of the wider 30mph streets in town. Most cut through two or three neighborhoods and it isn't long until you find the next one. I don't drive in them, and I don't pull into them to execute a right turn. True, they don't go anywhere, but the trade off for the convenicence of not having a car should be the inconvenience of the bike lanes taking you a bit out of your way.

MrEvil

P161911

crankcase

AustinMiniMan

It would make more sense to have a lightweight suit for bikers that deploys air bags like the Michelin Man (old, fat version) or the Martian landers. After all, they crash into things besides cars.

NovaloadMissesPolar

superbmtsub

ChuckyShamrok

LDMAN

Just so you know, most of the road design here in the US is made up of arterial road that connect subdivisions. Sure, it's easy to ride in a subdivision, but where do they take you? If I ride in such a way that I never leave my subdivision, I'll never get to the grocery store, the bus stop, the nearest Taco Bell; I'll simply have to ride round and round in circles passing my house over and over.

We cyclists have to use the faster roads, too, in order to get anywhere. My commute is long enough that I'm usually on roads with 35 mph or 45 mph limits. I do my best. But a requirement to maintain at least 75% of the posted speed limit? At 35 mph posted limit, a rider must manage 26.25 mph; not possible unless you're wearing really gross spandex. And try telling that to pedestrians when there's no sidewalk, the US Post Office & UPS when they are delivering mail/packages, grandma when she can't see over the wheel, and any cars that want to turn right or left and have to slow down or stop to make the turn. You're simply trying to ban bicyclists from roads that GO anywhere. That rule won't fly. I am not REQUIRED to buy a car to go places in the US, so stop trying to force me to use one. -grump- Either that or make sure your local traffic engineers set a maximum speed limit of 25 mph throughout your area.

dygituljunky

This is retarded.

theholymac

And the US should have bicycle lighting laws like Germany has - if you build a bike, you SHALL have reflectors and SHALL have lights that operate automatically (generator driven and come on whenever the bike is in motion).

The roads were initially for cyclists, horse-drawn carraiges, and trolleys. You car drivers are just impeding. (Tongue in cheek. It's the historical truth even if I am a car user, too).

Now, let me clarify. Bike lanes are more useful than some of the bike paths near me. The bike paths near me have a 10:1 stop sign ratio when compared to the road and a cyclist can't keep any decent speed up. Much like a diesel engine, a cyclist has the easiest ride when he/she can keep a steady pace, i.e., doesn't have to stop every hundred or so meters/yards. If we had a bike path that didn't have to stop for every driveway, I'd use that instead of the road.

What it really comes down to is this: I will ride with respect for drivers, yielding to the right when road conditions allow me to do so safely. I will always stop for red lights. I will stop for stop signs when there is other traffic or if the road is heavily used (if it's a low-traffic backwater road with no one around and I'm at a useless, extraneous stop sign, I'll probably slow down a little but keep rolling, especially if there are too many stop signs). If there is no bike lane and we end up at a redlight, I won't pass you on the right to get back to the front of the line of cars but I will stop squat in the middle of the lane however far back I happen to end up. I won't ride in a huge recreational pack which prevents motorists from passing (unless I'm riding in a bike lane).

You, the motorist, should have some respect for me as a fellow vehicle in return: give me room to ride and maneuver when you DO pass me (about 1.5 meters/5 feet). Don't ride my ass in case I fall. Don't honk, yell, spit, or throw stuff at me. Don't whip around me and cut me off at the red light or stop sign (my brakes are subject to physics, too), don't use your car as a weapon against me, don't door me, and please watch for me riding in the perpendicular road before you drive out of a side road across/into my lane of traffic.

Tickets for cyclists, tickets for motorists, and respect for each other will make for nice roads for motorists and cyclists alike.

And all you motorists who have read this far and still regard this post with scorn, why don't you get your lazy butts out of your ridiculously oversized SUVs and try bike riding for a month to get where you need to go so you understand what cyclists face?

dygituljunky

(...Look the other way! *snerk*)

Anyway. If you have less than four wheels, you're invisible. As CptSevere said, "everybody is out to kill you".

FuzzyPlushroom

CptSevere

Also, how will the airbag know the difference between striking a cyclist and some punk trailer-rat whacking your bumper with a bat?

BigJames80

stevecmh

Seriously though, my sympathies with TexanIdiot25...that's a hell of a story. Thanks for sharing that with us, and I'm glad you were able to move on.

bzr

KepWinger

KepWinger

Outside my business a few months ago, a kid decided to zip past a car on the shoulder, then use the crosswalk to keep going through the intersection. The car was turning, had her blinker on, proceeded with the turn, and hit the biker. Biker clattered to the ground, mildly damaged, and proceeded to launch a tyrade about sharing the road.

Police arrived, informed the cyclist that, as traffic, he has no right to duck around other cars, and as such, he received a traffic fine.

This matches up with my philosophy. If you're following the rules, you have as much right to the road as I do, and I will give you every courtesy I would give to, say, a motorcyclist -- that is, that of another car, but a bit more care and attention.

If you're breaking the rules, be it car, motorcycle, or bicycle, I have very little sympathy for you when you get yourself damaged. Unfortunately, cyclists are harder to see, smaller, more mobile, often consider themselves pedestrians and therefore not part of "traffic", and much more susceptible to injury when it all goes wrong, but I'm not reserving extra sympathy because of it.

I have sympathy for the cyclists who do it all right. elwood sounds like one of these, and I'm all over the idea of trying to help him out. Unfortunately, from my observations, those people are the minority, not the majority. If we put in a separate lane for cyclists, riders like elwood would use it. If, however, it took a few minutes longer to get somewhere on that safe route, most riders I've observed would choose to mix it up with traffic.

Longwinded... sorry. My point: This technology is primarily going to protect the elwoods of the world, and sorry bud, you're few and far between. The rest, you can put airbags on there all you want, but stupid risks are stupid risks, and all the airbags in the world won't help.

Dearthair the Totally Uncreative

I think we have an issue where people feel like they are owed complete safety at all times, even if they are choosing to do something that is clearly dangerous or just plain foolish. Make no mistake, taking a slow moving pedal-mobile onto a busy road with large high-speed objects is obviously dangerous. Having an untrained child do so while learning to control said pedal-mobile is insane. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be able to take bikes on the road, but I think it's foolhardy to pretend that you don't need to understand the rules of the roadway and be qualified to ride/drive there safely. If not, why bother licensing anyone? I could easily say, "how else will my child learn to drive the SUV to the store?" The only reason we find that insane is because we don't let children drive on public streets until they are old enough to be legally licensed.

That said, this particular idea (front bumper air bags) would be like trying to fly in a balloon through the flight path of a major airport and insisting that the airplanes all have giant cushy nose cones in case they hit you. If it happened, we'd say the balloon pilot was an idiot for floating into a flight path. When a bicycle floats into a street and gets hit by a car, the driver is some sort of ignorant monster.

TheTooth

TheTooth

elwood

"Then ride on the side of the road, in the grass" Would be another response to that. That can be either riding in someones land (thus trespassing), or riding in bad terrain, or just in a drainage ditch.

Teach your kids the rules of the road, or suffer the consequences when your kid gets hurt in the event they were doing something stupid in the road (blindly running stop signs, not yielding for cars, etc).

Kids these days are regulated and safe guarded and bubbled wrapped enough as is. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING is learned the hard way anymore.

"What kind of parent has his kid learn how to ride a bike by throwing him out on a busy street, anyway?"

"If you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball"

TexanIdiot25: Flavor enhanced with A.D.D.

Chrisb27

I'm all for the hand gun policy, as long as drivers get them to shoot other idiot drivers as well as idiot bike riders.

TheTooth

Dunno, the horror of that whole deal ain't totally worth the money lol.

@TheTooth: At that point, lets get licenses for walking people eh?

I doubt when a kid is learning to ride his bike for the 1st time, he want's to worry about a bicycle license?

Train idiot drivers, please. Or give cyclist rights to carry hand guns and shoot the idiot drivers ourselfs.

TexanIdiot25: Flavor enhanced with A.D.D.

Please?

No?

Shapeshifter

TheTooth

joshman

TheTooth

I think external airbags is not necessary. bonnet crumple zones and car designs should also be done in such a way cyclists and pedestrians are less likely to get serious injuries.
Unfortunately we can no longer afford to build the toy cars we all love simply because of the amount of cars on our roads.. the rules of the game have changed.

sos10

Full disclosure, we were almost sideswiped a few times on the bike, while in the bike lane mind you. Thankfully we were fine in all those cases and the assholes had a big deep scratch in their paint.

Triborough

PD to be

Sth002000

P161911

discontinuuity

Quite a lot of people I know who ride bicycles fall into two categories: People who do it out of choice, who are generally 30+ and follow road law to the letter, those who cannot afford to own a car, who are much like the first category but are on much slower bikes, and students.

The latter category is the big problem - they're stupid, overconfident, and all too often, intoxicated.

Aren't you happy they're not driving cars?

Spasticteapot

I think these should be mandatory on all vehicles where the driver's head is more than 5' off the ground. In other words, SUVs and trucks.

Aside from the obvious visibility and handling problems of these vehicles, it would also single out the cyclist's worst nightmares: Rednecks in pickup trucks, and, even worse, stupid cell-phone-yakking moms in SUVs.

A car with a low hood - say, a Miata or a Porsche - will flip you up on to it, which is livable. A car with a big, flat front - like a Range Rover - will simply crush your skull like a watermelon.

You keep your sports cars sporty, and I keep my cerebellum. Sound fair?

Spasticteapot

elwood

P161911

Unevolved 8.04

elwood

Most of this has been said before, but allow me to reiterate with what I agree with:

A tactile deployment (like airbags deploy now) will do nothing to soften the blow. If anything, it will make for some comic crashes. Driver hits biker, biker is propelled 15 ft in opposite direction by slightly delayed airbag deployment. The only obvious solution to this is some sort of proximity sensor. But there are even more problems with this. This follows the same shoddy logic as CAFE regulations, that mandating all new cars have some feature will have a worthwhile overall effect on the driving population. And besides, what's the two things you don't want your new car to have? Weight and cost.

There are much cheaper and effective methods. Increased roadways for bikes only would have an immediate effect, as would increased driver education. But talking about driver education is a whole 'nother conversation I'm going to shy away from at this point.

Unevolved 8.04

P161911

As for the "roads are for cars" thing, that largely depends on where you live. I imagine that in the Netherlands there is quite a bit of bike traffic on public roads, and some places have dedicated bike lanes. Where I live, I've found it safer to keep in the right-side lane of the slower roads. Motorists tend not to see you if you're on the sidewalk, and can sideswipe cyclists on right turns.

discontinuuity

brownie

STR8SIX

brownie

24V

philibuster

Including one in the middle of the steering wheel for when you need to honk the horn.

graverobber- It says Loud Pipes Save Lives

philibuster

As a cyclist, I find drivers are one of these:

Careful Driver: sees cyclist(s) and gives them room. Usually another cyclist or empathetic.

Ignorant Driver: feels cyclist's helmet is enough that driver can get close and not care. Extreme cases are rednecks that make a game out of tossing some debris at cyclist.

Drunk Driver: Fatal cyclist killer, especially at dusk/evening when night cyclists RED-FLASHING LED makes the driver a moth to the flame.

Distracted Driver: typical cellphone yacker/soccer mom not paying attention. Applies to peds and other drivers.

Elderly Drivers: your vision will go, and your reaction time drop, along with an increase in your intake of prescription meds.

Anyway, I fail to see how something like this can re-educate the (bad drivers) above. It would deafen/injure the cyclist, let alone apply physics on both the hood and biker.

I would like to see raised or wider cycling lanes (one direction per side of road). I would like to see devices that record vehicles on approach, with imagegrab of driver and tag.

I think DMV should require renewal of license every 5 years with MANDATORY drivers test (both written and road, with obstacles like peds, cyclists and motorcyclists).

I would also like to see the Feds give incentive to more riding to work, grants to encourage more cycling (car-free) lanes, and with gas prices going up more daily, more conditioning that motorcycling and bicycling should be treated like exploding pedestrians!
(aka more penalties and awareness/respect).

(I ahd coffee. yep. Too much. Anyway...all this is moot in winter regions...)

SigmundTheSeaMonster

Sorry cyclists, stop being holier-than-thou douchebag asshat on the road first, then I'll consider caring if I run over you.

DrewWorksToo

elwood

beercheck

Isetta

TexanIdiot25: Flavor enhanced with A.D.D.

jchabotte

BraappBraapp

@arbnpx: Yes sir, it's called my '90 Firebird, pop-up lights and all.

TexanIdiot25: Flavor enhanced with A.D.D.

These are the hardcore 6am road bikers, though..."average joe" bike commuting hasn't really caught on here, since it's geographically difficult around here--lots of hilly and forested choke points that are not bike-friendly.

Ash78

Instead of making cars more and more computerized safe-boxes, why the hell can we not teach people to drive better? And this is why:

Back on August 10th, 2001, I was 11-12ish and I nearly died.

I lived in an apartment complex at the time, which had one road that went through the complex. A simple go in, straight, left, straight, left straight, exit. Me and my friends were all riding around on bikes that day. It was sorta wet out, had rained hours prior. We were doing some stupid game with our bikes, chase or something.

Coming from the exit side of the road, I was riding up to the corner. I saw a blue Crown Vic (an 89 to be exact) coming from the other side of the corner, so I slowed down, and got close to the curb (on my side of the road). I go around to take the corner, and then, next thing I know, I'm on the ground, with the most horrendous site I have ever seen.

The Crown Vic driver was speeding through the complex, 15 mph according to police reports, and cut that corner tight. Slightly drunk (but not over the limit), just broke up with his girl friend apparently.

His dumb ass cut the corner, and hit me. Head on. Now, I don't remember the hit, must have closed my eyes. But, I open them to see I'm laying on the ground, with my left leg bent knee up by the front driver's side tire.

I notice my bike, some 15 feet away with the rim bent (also bent the solid steel front brakes).

I notice my leg. The bloody scene. The night before, a short cartoon series named Samuri Jack had appeared on cartoon network, and in that show when Samuri Jack cut open a robot, they detailed the oil lines inside shooting oil. That image jumped into my mind right as I saw the carnage.

"This has got to be a dream" I said
"Sorry kid, it's not" the driver said.

The carnage you ask? A 6 inch wide (mind you, thats HUGE on my 11 year old leg) gash, down to the bone, straight through all of the meat. It was split wide open because my leg was knee-up. I could see every layer my leg, much like a pie-cut of the Earth in school.

From the core to the crust:

I could see bone, white as snow. I could see muscle, red as hell (the gash had sliced all 4 quad muscles), I could see the yellowish fat on top that, then the fading pink-to-skin on top. I could see every individual blood vessel streaming blood. The skin all over my knee cap was sliced up from the glass around the head light.

I was scarred silent. Besides my 1st words, the only thing else I said was what apartment I lived at so they could go grab my mom.

The driver had put his hand over the cut to slow the bleeding, because it was flowing (took 2 years to get all the blood off the curb and street, paint wouldn't stick to the blood and the spots shown through). Minutes later another neighbor grabbed a towl, and put it tightly over the wound.

It took 7 minutes for the EMS truck to arrive. Holy shit, the longest 7 minutes ever, and that is never a lie of time slowing down.

Talk about a scene, it was just a wall of people around me and the car. I saw my friend, my mom was histerical, and just the waves of on-lookers.

3 minutes after the EMS truck got there, the ambulance arrived. Talk about fear. The only thing I watched was the heart moniter on my finger, just counting the beats. Wondering what my future was going to be. I ended off very insanly lucky. No more then an inch higher, and the major artery in my leg would have been sliced, and I would've been dead before the ambulance got there. Any lower, and it would have cut a major nerve, rendering my lower leg useless (amputation).

At the ER bed, I could feel the warm blood pooling around my leg in the psuedo-cardboard-cast my leg was in. The next morning I was in for sugury, and they reattached all the muscles, tendons, and stapled everything shut. The docter said he had lost count of how many internal stitches were used. And I was in a full leg cast for the next 2 months.

Physical therapy was a trip the 1st few times. I had no control over my leg. Instead of 4 quads working together, each was on it's own agenda. I was walking on crutches by late-October though, and on 2 feet that december. I pushed a hella hard in physical therapy to make things go quicker. Made the estimated 6 month recovery in 4, and had full motion of my leg by late january I guess.

A lawsuit (his insurance wouldn't pay up their end, so fuck you Geico), and 7 years later, I don't have a fear of cars nor biking (avid Mt Biker). But a different view of life for sure. Little shit doesn't bother me like it would others, knowing I've had bigger things to tackle.

I got some knarly scars (chicks do indeed, dig scars) and a helluva story. And money to help me through college.

But no way in hell would I want do it again, or see someone else in the same.

TexanIdiot25: Flavor enhanced with A.D.D.

arbnpx

Isetta

elwood

Almost every cyclist accident I've read about in our area is some sort of sideswipe, usually at an intersection. For example, the cyclist will try to cruise through an intersection, but the car beside him will suddenly decide to turn right.

Ash78

And I empathize with the bicycle riders, but pop-up headlights were already taken from us for the same reason. Did anyone else as a kid look forward to owning a car with pop-up headlights?

arbnpx

elwood

elwood

No, that would increase personal responsibility, and we all know how horrible and despicable that is.

teamtestbot

Capt. Mazda Sisko

They have been working with motorcycle airbag suits:
[www.damninteresting.com]

+ Watch video

I wouldn't think cyclist would want to wear these things since they're probably pretty heavy and hot, but you can put safety in your own "hands" if you do...

As for putting external "airbags" in a car, go for it. But it's not a completely new idea...
[www.nytimes.com]

akirachan

+ Watch video

Mad_Science

graverobber- It says Loud Pipes Save Lives

bzr

Yeah, almost.

boosted-lego-wagon

It's called "European Vacation"

Ash78

PatFromGundo

brownie

A more likely solution would be the cyclists be required to wear airbags themselves. Then I can keep the weight down on my car.

LamerX

And a Fisker speaker system that makes the Jetsons' car sound.

Ash78

snep